Average CPU speed consumers are using

[blakerwry]

I was just wondering what everbody thinks the "avererage joe" is running in their computer.

This does not neccessarily mean what people are buying... if you think the average joe is using 2+ year old equipment because it stil meets his needs, then by all means say so.


I through in the core names to help with defining speeds... ignore it if you wish.

 

[jtr1962]

Given the poor state of the economy plus the fact that even a 5 year old machine such as a PII-300 is still good for basic websurfing and other common home uses, I would say many people are holding on to their old machines longer. My fastest machine is a PII-450. About the only time I wish it were faster is when the frame rates drop a bit in MS Train Simulator. I would say the average machine in use nowadays is somewhere around 300 Mhz. There are still a fair number of people using Pentiums although I think the 486 and 386 users are a small minority by now. My guess is that the vast majority of people are buying new computers for one of three reasons: 1)This is their first PC 2)They are replacing a PC that broke 3)They need a second or third PC

I just don't think that many people are buying a new machine because they consider their old one too slow. The only exceptions to this might be someone still using a 386 or 486 with Windows 3.1, and it finally dawned on them that they can't use 99% of the new software made today. Anything more than that, even a Pentium 133, is still perfectly serviceable for the casual home user. In fact, a P4 that is only used for websurfing and e-mail is about as big an overkill as I can think of. Sort of like killing a roach with a wrecking ball.

 

[Tea]

Average as in mean, median or mode? Seriously - without knowing what sort of "average" you are intending, I couldn't say. All three are different.

 

[blakerwry]

why would a monkey concern herself with such things? If you want, go ahead and throw out all the outliers... I'm sure that are a few on either end of this spectrum...

The mean is what I had intended, but I suppose median would be the "best" way of sorting... considering that the mode is likely to not be in the middle because of the non-random way CPU's are produced and sold.

 

[Fushigi]

I went with 700-1000. Not state-of-the-art but not yet a museum piece. Fast enough that most folks won't care about upgrading, likely that few components have failed, and meets the minimum requirements for many games. Also marks the rise of the Athlon/Duron and some real price competition.

I would say people buy home PCs for, in no particular order:

• Managing the home/finances (i.e. Quicken)
  Internet access
  Games
  SOHO; taking work home from the office / telecommuting.

- Fushigi

 

[Buck]

And where are the AMD K6-2s and K6-IIIs in this poll?

 

[blakerwry]

the k6's spanned across several bus speeds and memory technologies.... I felt that the Intel processors would be better suited for someone to guage a computer's speed...

ex: a pentium MMX runs on a 66(possibly 50)mhz bus, uses EDO RAM, socket 7 board, probably a PCI vid card. The MMX's speeds start at 166 and goto 233mHz.


A k6(233-300mhz)... runs on socket 5/7... 66mHz bus.. EDO RAM and is most comparable to the MMX(it was probably an upgrade from an MMX CPU)... it does not have integrated L2 cache.... And may not(in my experience doesn't) support UDMA HDD's ... has no MMX/3DNow technology.

The K6-II runs at 66, 100Mhz (and the majority are probably overclocked) bus speeds. It could be using EDO, PC66, PC100, or PC133(but most likely some form of SDRAM... may have PCI or AGP video(probably AGP). The k6-II speeds start at ~266 and goto 550. It does support MMX/3D now... and is similar to a pII... but is still using the socket 7 boards. Might support UDMA mode 2.


If I would have listed the K6, k6-II/III I would have put the k6 next to the Pentium MMX and the k6-II/III next to the pentium II... I thought about it.. however I decided that since the CPU technology was years ahead of the rest of the computer in many cases that there may be some speed barriers and to simply not list the AMD socket 7 chips.

 

[NRG = mc²]

From my experience, the majority of people seem to be using P2 and early P3 systems (266-550MHz).

[/quote]a pentium MMX runs on a 66(possibly 50)mhz bus, uses EDO RAM, socket 7 board, probably a PCI vid card. The MMX's speeds start at 166 and goto 233mHz.

All MMXs used 66MHz. There was a 133MMX also, but I have never seen one in use. Some later socket 7 (not super) mobos used SDRAM.

 

[NRG = mc²]

Whoops. Royal screwup.

 

[NRG = mc²]

http://www.storageforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=23969#23969

 

[blakerwry]

you *could* use an MMX cpu in a super 7.... the only time you would probably ever see this is if someone built a computer out of leftovers... which would mean an MMX using SDRAM...

I thought I saw 180mhz MMX's... I guess those were Pentium pro's maybe... I know thay ran at 180....

I guess you *could* see an MMX cpu at 50mHz bus... but it would mean that you were using an older socket 5 or 7 mobo that didn't run on 66mHz bus (unlikely for a socket 7)

In any event, you are right... in the default configs in which they were sold, you will see all MMX's on socket 7's running at 66mhz bus with the option of EDO or SDRAM(on later boards)

 

[NRG = mc²]

Yes you could use a Pentium in a Super 7, what I meant is that a small number of systems with Pentiums in normal Socket 7 boards use SDRAM. These boards usually have both DIMM and SIMM slots.

 

[blakerwry]

you *could* use an MMX cpu in a super 7.... the only time you would probably ever see this is if someone built a computer out of leftovers... which would mean an MMX using SDRAM...

I thought I saw 180mhz MMX's... I guess those were Pentium pro's maybe... I know thay ran at 180....

I guess you *could* see an MMX cpu at 50mHz bus... but it would mean that you were using an older socket 5 or 7 mobo that didn't run on 66mHz bus (unlikely for a socket 7)

In any event, you are right... in the default configs in which they were sold, you will see all MMX's on socket 7's running at 66mhz bus with the option of EDO or SDRAM(on later boards)

Why did I say 50? I meant 60.... I dont think any pentiums ran at 50Mhz bus officially... although I believe Cyrix had just about every bus speed/voltage/multiplier combination known to man in their line of processors.

 

[NRG = mc²]

There was a 50MHz Pentium - The Pentium 75

 

[Bozo]

Where I work we still have about 400 PCs running PII-300s. I would guess thats what the average person is using at home.
Whats the average of the people who post here? Most likely the next generation...PIIIs

Bozo

 

[blakerwry]

There was a 50MHz Pentium - The Pentium 75

you bastard! you are, of course, correct.

 

[blakerwry]

Where I work we still have about 400 PCs running PII-300s. I would guess thats what the average person is using at home.
Whats the average of the people who post here? Most likely the next generation...PIIIs

Bozo

Yeah, where I used to work we had probably 20-30 office machines all running Celery's ~400mHz on Slot 1 boards with a slotket. Every RAM slot had a stick in it.. I think most machines had 320MB of PC100 (@66mhz of course).


I would assume that this is fairly common for most offices considering that the needs of office equipment has changed reletively little in regards to CPU speed in the past several years.

But I am wondering about home PC's... personal computers... I think that the needs have changed a bit... people are using digital cameras, watching higher quality multimedia, playing more advanced games.. running more bloated OS's....

The mean speed of computer i my house is ~750mHz.. the median is 975mHz. The pentium III 650 would not meet my needs becasue of it's reletively poor gaming and photoshop performance when compared to a 1700+.. but it is more than sufficient for its tasks of word processing, email, surfing, and music listening. It has been upgraded several times.. but even in its original 4 year old configuration it would still be adequate for its current uses.

my xp1700+ actually more than meets my needs.. I would like to have a faster computer, but don't really "need" a faster computer.

 

[Mercutio]

Of course, the Pentium 60 is all alone as functioning at a 60MHz bus with a 1x multiplier - in part to ensure that Intel's PCI came to dominate PC expansion buses, rather than VLB (the "local bus" refering to the fact that VLB operated at the same frequency as the CPU).

My best guess, from dealing with many students from a variety of backgrounds, as well as the kids who mostly buy PCs from me, is that an "average" PC at this point is in the Pentium 2 or low-end P3 range of speeds, say, 300 - 600MHz.

A Pentium 133 is an absolutely usable machine! Give it 64MB of RAM and a disk that's about 3GB, and it'll run IE (shudder) and Word all day long. 300MHz or so, and you've got a real workhorse, as long as you're sitting at that 128MB RAM mark.

Of course, the fact that Windows ME and XP both require CPUs in excess of 300MHz is probably bringing more people to upgrade than anything at this point. That, and games. Commercial Games that run well on a 300MHzx machine are becoming vanishingly rare.

Actually, as I think about it, looking at the minimum specs for games is probably one of the best determining factors for "average" PC speeds.

 

[Pradeep]

If the FSB of the P60 was 60MHz, then what was the PCI bus speed? Surely still 33MHz? I had the 486 DX-50 and the P66, what a frigging waste of money the P66 was. Tho the gold die cap looked pretty cool.

 

[Mercutio]

IIRC it was 30MHz.

Anyone wonder why the P60 was a stillborn baby?

In my long memory, there was also a P66 (1x66). And what the the hell were the specs on the P90?

 

[Mercutio]

That'll teach me to not read Pradeep's posts.

Sigh.

 

[Jake the Dog]

afaik running a P60 did did make the PC bus run @ 30MHz. to the best of my memory, the P60/66 had some sort of floating point bug and failed to take the CPU market by storm. Intel fixed it and released the P75 but it wasn't intil the P90 came out that they hit the big time. is that about right?

who remembers the AMD DX4/100/120/150's? my 1st PC was an AMD DX4/120 which I soon had running at @ 150 :roll: it was faster in Win95 than my mates P120 however his Pentium was faster than mine running NT4.

 

[NRG = mc²]

In my long memory, there was also a P66 (1x66). And what the the hell were the specs on the P90

Indeed there was - I came across one of those last week at work, some guy bought it off me for a collection, rare as rocking horse pooh.

www.rotting-energy.net/Forums/p66.jpg

P90 was 1.5x60.

the P60/66 had some sort of floating point bug and failed to take the CPU market by storm. Intel fixed it and released the P75 but it wasn't intil the P90 came out that they hit the big time. is that about right?

IIRC, the bug wasn't found/fixed till the P133?

who remembers the AMD DX4/100/120/150's

Uh-huh. My very first system, which some colleague of my fathers gave us when he left the country was a 5x86-133 with 16mb. I hardly ever used the thing because WFW kept crashing. A few years later I got my first proper PC. I still have the chip. Somewhere.

 

[Buck]

My first PC, er. . . computer, uh . . . was Diana in all of her 1Mhz glory.

 

[blakerwry]

lets see, I have one of the bugged P66's.. and 2 of the AMD 486's that ran past 100Mhz... I'm not sure of their exact speeds though.


The 60, 90, 120, and 180(Pentium pro) all ran on the 60Mhz bus.


The diff between 20 and 33mHz bus was really moot... if you wanted, run the FSB at 75 and get a PCI speed of 37.5mHz.. some mobo's supported 85? mHz... but they usually(not always) increased the PCI divider so instead of a divsion by 2 you divided the FSB by 3 to compute the PCI bus speed.

To help you understand why it was moot back then... try to imagine an AGP 8x card... now imagine an AGP 7.2X card... what's the speed difference between the two? It doesn't really matter because either way you arent even close to saturating the bus.

 

[blakerwry]

lets see, I have one of the bugged P66's.. and 2 of the AMD 486's that ran past 100Mhz... I'm not sure of their exact speeds though.


The 60, 90, 120, and 180(Pentium pro) all ran on the 60Mhz bus.


The diff between 20 and 33mHz bus was really moot... if you wanted, run the FSB at 75 and get a PCI speed of 37.5mHz.. some mobo's supported 85? mHz... but they usually(not always) increased the PCI divider so instead of a divsion by 2 you divided the FSB by 3 to compute the PCI bus speed.

To help you understand why it was moot back then... try to imagine an AGP 8x card... now imagine an AGP 7.2X card... what's the speed difference between the two? It doesn't really matter because either way you arent even close to saturating the bus.

 

[Buck]

you *could* use an MMX cpu in a super 7.... the only time you would probably ever see this is if someone built a computer out of leftovers... which would mean an MMX using SDRAM...

Why would the system probably be made out of leftovers? Pentium 233 MMX Socket7s work great on boards like the Asus P5AB, Epox MVP3C2, or the FIC VA-503+. These same systems do a remarkable job of running WindowsXP.

 

[blakerwry]

What I mean is that if you built a computer out of new components you would not ahve put the two together

A) when the MMX came out super 7's were not available... so it would not be possible to have built a system with a super 7 and MMX at the time.

B) when super 7's came out you could easily get a AMD k6-II at higher clock speed for less money so you would not be using the pentium MMX in a super 7 if you were building an all new computer....

The MMX CPU came out years before super 7's and the MMX CPU was on the lower end speed range of what the super 7 boards even supported. Remember, the Super7's were made so that the k6-II would be able to compete with the PII (some of which were already running at 100Mhz FSB).. I imagine this would be in the 350-450Mhz range of K6-II's.

If you had left overs or were upgrading parts of your computer piece by piece, I could easily see the two together... but you would not find the two put together in a new system.

 

[Buck]

Although your logic assumes the best, and that all customers would purchase the most recent of all technologies, they don’t. When Slot-1s appeared, they were ruinously expensive (Intella keeps up that custom), hence the beauty of a K6-II. However, Pentium Pros were not in that overpriced arena of their brethren and could stand on a few of their own good merits during that time. Although the MMX babies preceded the Super7 boards, I sold my share of the combo once it was available.

 

[Cliptin]

afaik running a P60 did did make the PC bus run @ 30MHz. to the best of my memory, the P60/66 had some sort of floating point bug and failed to take the CPU market by storm. Intel fixed it and released the P75 but it wasn't intil the P90 came out that they hit the big time. is that about right?

who remembers the AMD DX4/100/120/150's? my 1st PC was an AMD DX4/120 which I soon had running at @ 150 :roll: it was faster in Win95 than my mates P120 however his Pentium was faster than mine running NT4.

Yeah, the first pc I personally owned was a DX4/120. A while later I upgraded it to a 5x86/133. It still lives on as my smoothwall.

 

[NRG = mc²]

The 60, 90, 120, and 180(Pentium pro) all ran on the 60Mhz bus.

<nitpick> also the P150 </nitpick>

However, Pentium Pros were not in that overpriced arena of their brethren and could stand on a few of their own good merits during that time

I never remember Pentium Pros being cheap??

 

[Mercutio]

Nope, the P150 was on a 50MHz bus. Almost every P150 ran OK at 166, though.

 

[NRG = mc²]

It was 60... I'm almost willing to bet my life on it - I remember clocking my friends P150 to 166 by changing the bus speed to 66MHz.

 

[NRG = mc²]

http://homex.coolconnect.com/member3/wenyao1/overclk.htm

For Pentium owners and above, most motherboards support the 50 MHz (used exclusively only for the P75), 60 MHz (for P60, P90, P120, P150) and 66MHz bus speed (P66, P100, P133, P166, P200, P233).

:wink:

 

[blakerwry]

um... are you guys forgetting that the CPU's are NOT multiplier locked...

You could run them on whatever FSB speed you wanted as long as your mobo and RAM could keep up and you used the correct multiplier to keep the CPU at stock sped.

To my knowledge(and memory is a funny thing so don't quote me on this one) intel didn't do this untill pII's (with the exception of specially marked "overdrive" procesors) AMD didnt lock until the Athlon (err... atleast I could always change the multipliers on my K6-II's)